Joost Blog

“I want my MTV.”
- Dire Straits

I used to be in the telecommunications business and have always admired the evolution of cellular telephony. When mobile phones were originally introduced, they were not a substitute for landline phone. They were designed for use in places where there was no access to landline phones – in your car, at a conference, on the beach – few people ever used a mobile phone in the presence of a landline phone. But over time, as prices dropped, quality improved and mobile phone service became richer and richer – they became a substitute for landline phones. In fact, many of us rarely use a plain old telephone anymore. We have become such avid users of contact lists, SMS/MMS, call logs, Google maps – an endless source of mobile information at our fingertips … that the landline phone is the functional equivalent of a paperweight on our desks.

The mobile phone revolution took 15 years.

When I look at our industry – essentially, video and entertainment over the Internet – I see a similar pattern evolving. I anticipate our transformation will probably take less time – thanks to innovations like the mobile phone, people are more comfortable with technology and, in fact, there are now multiple generations who have never known a world without personal technology …

But as much as video over the Internet has been hyped and discussed – and we all know it has been, and for some time now – I I think the core issue still eludes the broadly accepted view of this service. The most common questions I get about Joost are always about the quality of the video. Our quality is excellent, particularly for the amount of bandwidth we consume (about 500 kbps). But, nestled in the question itself is the fallacy about video on the Internet today.

Most people seem to think of the Internet as just another “pipe” to your home, just like cable or satellite. As a technical matter, the Internet is just another broadband pipe to your home. But this view completely misses the crux of what the Internet represents: a social, entertainment and business medium.

In its simplest sense, the Internet is a collection of computing devices that communicate with each other to disseminate data or information. That data can take any form – text, images, sound, or video. The nice thing about the Internet is that it doesn’t really care about what it’s carrying. Whether it’s a blog, an image, an instant message, or a blockbuster movie – to the Internet, it’s just bits.

What makes the Internet different and better than from other informational or entertainment delivery “pipes” is that it is both fast and bi-directional.

Fast is obviously necessary when you’re talking about an application as data-heavy as video (although nowadays, if I had to use dial-up to download my email, I’d be pretty frustrated). But the bi-directionality is a real breakthrough when you’re talking about video entertainment. No entertainment medium has ever incorporated audience participation on such a massive scale. Yes, you can “vote” on American Idol via SMS. But really, that is the electronic equivalent of a homing pigeon. The explosion of social networking as a phenomenon offers us a clue as to the underlying power of audience participation. The whole experience of watching TV can be completely transformed on the Internet.

To realize how the Internet can change video entertainment, consider the cycle of watching video in a TV-world, and watch the Internet transform it. In the TV world, your friends tell you about their favorite shows while standing around the watercooler … but on the Internet, they share their favorites through their virtual voices: Twitter, Facebook, IM and email. While you’re watching TV on the couch, you enjoy and share your emotions about the show with your friends verbally … on the Internet, you share those moments with anyone, anywhere – in real time. After you watch the show, you went back to the watercooler to share your opinions of it … on the Internet, your ratings, opinions, comments and thoughts can live on in perpetuity, and your friends can respond back.

So all of the wonderful physical experiences that made TV viewing so much better exist – and can be enhanced – with the Internet. We just haven’t done it quite right yet – we haven’t made it easy enough for the consumer. The world still thinks of the Internet as just one big virtual DVD player to play and replay TV’s greatest hits … so let’s see how long it takes before that changes.